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KATMANDU, Nepal — Nepal will cut climbing fees for Mount Everest to lure more mountaineers to
the world’s highest peak, even though it’s already overcrowded during the peak climbing season.

Hundreds of foreign climbers, each paying thousands of dollars, flock to the 29,035- foot
Everest summit during the main climbing season from March to May.

Under existing rules, Nepal charges $25,000 per climber as a license fee, or royalty. But a
group of seven people can secure a permit for $70,000, a practice officials say encourages climbers
to form big groups.

Starting next year, Tourism Ministry official Tilakram Pandey said, each climber will be charged
$11,000, hopefully ending the group practice.

“The change in royalty rates will discourage artificially formed groups, where the leader does
not even know some of the members in his own team,” Pandey said.

“It will promote responsible and serious climbers.”

He said the new rates will apply for the peak season on the Southeast Ridge, or South Col, route
pioneered by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953.

Permits for other routes and for the rest of the year, when the mountain is virtually deserted,
will cost as little as $2,500 to encourage off-season climbing, officials said.

But experts said most mountaineers still will favor the spring, and the standard route, because
of warmer weather and more daylight.

Fees for hundreds of smaller peaks also have been changed.

More than 4,000 people have climbed Mount Everest since the historic 1953 ascent. Nearly 250
have died on its slopes.

Climbing historian Elizabeth Hawley said Everest was “terribly crowded” during the peak season.
Allowing in those with no experience in serious climbing raises accident risks, he said.

Sushil Ghimire, the Tourism Ministry’s most-senior official, said the government is considering
regulations forcing aspirants to climb lower peaks before attempting Everest.

With the rise in the number of climbers, pollution concerns also have increased.

“There is still some garbage at higher altitudes, and that is being collected by climbers during
expeditions,” said Dawa Steven Sherpa, whose expeditions have collected 15 tons of rubbish since
2008.

Nepal, home to eight of the world’s 14 tallest mountains, has more than 2,000 Himalayan peaks,
with 326 open to foreign climbers. Mountaineering is an important component of tourism that makes
up about 4 percent of the impoverished nation’s gross domestic product.